Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many illegal license plates have been seized by the police in each of the last five years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is working closely with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) to improve the identification and enforcement of number plate crime.
We do not hold information centrally on illegal licence plate seizures.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle illegal license plates.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is working closely with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) to improve the identification and enforcement of number plate crime.
We do not hold information centrally on illegal licence plate seizures.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of allowing spousal visa applications to be submitted prior to the wedding date.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Fiancés, fiancées or proposed civil partners can apply for a six-month Entry Clearance to enable a marriage or civil partnership to take place in the UK.
Once the ceremony has taken place, the spouse or civil partner will be eligible to apply for permission to stay in the UK, on a route to settlement, as a partner under the Family Immigration Rules.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made a recent assessment of the effectiveness of the regulation of online (a) ordering and (b) delivery of (i) age-restricted products and (ii) bladed items to self-service lockers.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Under the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 it is the legal responsibility of sellers to ensure that age-restricted bladed articles are not delivered or arranged to be delivered to a self-service locker.
The law requires (set out what is expected of online sales of knives and age verification and the requirements on those who deliver) This legislation is enforced by the police and Trading Standards.
We keep the law in this area under close review and the Government has recently taken action to prohibit the sale, manufacture, supply and possession of zombie style knives and machetes, subject to the relevant Statutory Instrument being approved by Parliament.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information his Department holds on the number of total hours police have spent accompanying patients in hospitals in the last 12 months.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The Home Office does not collect information on the total number of hours police have spent accompanying patients in hospitals.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) e-cigarette and vaping and (b) tobacco products were seized at UK borders in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
On point a, Border Force does not hold data on eCigarettes and vaping in an easily accessible format.
Border Force regularly publishes data on tobacco products seized at the UK border.
The latest transparency returns can be found at the link here; Border Force transparency data: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will review her Department’s use of hotel accommodation to help improve the suitability of accommodation offered to asylum seekers.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The United Kingdom has a statutory obligation to provide destitute asylum seekers with accommodation and other support whilst their application for asylum is being considered as set out in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
The enduring solution is to stop the illegal, dangerous, and unnecessary small boat crossings that are overwhelming our asylum system. The Home Office is working tirelessly, alongside other government departments, to reduce the Government’s dependency on hotels for contingency accommodation through a package of long-term and short-term measures.
The Asylum Accommodation service providers identify suitable accommodation and ensure that it conforms to the accommodation standards and provision set out in Schedule 2 of the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts (AASC). The Statement of Requirements, available via the link below, sets out the full details of our contractual obligations:
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much of the funding of the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda she plans to report as Official Development Assistance.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The funding for the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda is separate from, and additional to, the Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applications awaiting an initial decision were lodged one year or longer ago; and how many asylum applications had not received an initial decision at the end of each month of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum applications awaiting initial decision can be found in table Asy_D03 of the ‘Asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Please note that data is broken down by duration awaiting decision of ‘6 months or less’ and ‘more than 6 months’. Additionally, data is published quarterly and reflect the number of people awaiting a decision as at the end of the period, rather than the total throughout the period.
Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The latest data relate to the year ending March 2023.
Data for the year ending June 2023 is scheduled to be published on 24 August 2023. Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Alternatively, operational data on the total awaiting asylum initial decision WIP can be found in table ASY_02 of the ‘Immigration and protection data’ published as part of the ‘Migration transparency data’ release. This data includes further breakdown of duration awaiting decision (less than 3 months, 3-6 months, 6-12 months and 12 months+) and refers to applications made after 1st October 2006.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the (a) powers and (b) resources available to the police to deal with the illegal use of quad bikes.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The police have adequate powers under the Road Traffic Act 1988 and Police Reform Act 2002 to seize vehicles being driven illegally without a valid driving licence or insurance or in an anti-social manner.
Decisions on when to use these powers and deploy available resources are operational matters for individual Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables in conjunction with local policing plans. They are best placed to understand how to meet the needs of local communities.